From Michael Jenkins, current President of Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary

American Exceptionalism 

There's nothing exceptional about nationalistic arrogance. A good many nations have indulged in religious self-righteousness. The "God-backs-our-cause" mentality has festooned and adorned the rhetoric of countless wars and political campaigns in history, and not just in our country.  No, there's nothing exceptional about it, but there's also no virtue in it. Nationalistic Exceptionalism is at odds with Christian faith. And when it becomes a tenet of Christian faith, that faith has been seduced into heresy.

Certainly it is a virtue to love one's country. I love America: the land, its people, our form of government, and way of life. But to raise any nation to the level of Divine Exception is to pervert legitimate love and devotion into an illegitimate idolatry. It is to place alongside the one Word of God, whom we must trust and obey, another word demanding also ultimate allegiance. That we cannot do without losing our souls.